


Ritual

by paperstorm



Series: Somewhere In Brooklyn [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Body Dysmorphia, Brooklyn, Established Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, POV Steve Rogers, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 07:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17096498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperstorm/pseuds/paperstorm
Summary: She’s beautiful, and comes from a nice family, and she’s exactly the kind of person Bucky should be with, and instead he’s sitting with Steve on their fire escape, watching the sun set and turning down what could be a chance for a normal life. A pretty bride, a real home, maybe some kids and a dog. All those American Dream things, that he deserves, and is passing up, by being with Steve.





	Ritual

**Author's Note:**

> A late night conversation about Steve experiencing body dysmorphia, both pre and post serum, and then this happened the next morning.

Steve swings his heels a little, legs dangling down over the metal, and bumps his ankle into Bucky’s calf. Seated next to him on the fire escape, with his arms draped casually over the guard rail, Bucky kicks back. He takes a drag on the cigarette held between his fingers, and offers it to Steve. He always offers, even though Steve always declines. The one time Steve tried to smoke, he’d coughed so hard he pulled a muscle in his gut and couldn’t breathe properly for days. His lungs are already damaged, they can’t handle nicotine. But Bucky always offers anyway. Not because he’s trying to push the habit onto Steve, but because he doesn’t want it to seem like he’s assuming Steve couldn’t handle it. Steve appreciates the gesture, even if it is mildly patronizing. It comes from a good place. Everything Bucky does comes from a good place.  
   
“Hey, Bucky!” a female voice calls, from the street below.  
   
Steve looks down, at blond curls and a pink dress and a gloved hand waving up at them. Mary went to school with them, and Bucky had taken her out a few times, although not recently. Steve remembers with a twisting in his stomach watching them kiss, once, outside the library, before they got in trouble for it.  
   
“Hi doll-face,” Bucky answers, smooth as honey, and not moving further away from Steve like he sometimes does when they come across people who know them and they’re sitting or standing too close together.  
   
“When are we going dancing again?” she asks, bright smile and twinkling eyes.  
   
“Next weekend, maybe,” Bucky says. He’s lying. He’s just too nice to tell her no in public.  
   
“Got plans tonight?” A hopeful lilt in her voice leaves Steve feeling a little sorry for her, but more sorry for himself, because she’s beautiful, and comes from a nice family, and she’s exactly the kind of person Bucky should be with, and instead he’s sitting with Steve on their fire escape, watching the sun set and turning down what could be a chance for a normal life. A pretty bride, a real home, maybe some kids and a dog. All those American Dream things, that he deserves, and is passing up, by being with Steve.  
   
“I do, sorry sweetheart.” He knocks his shoulder into Steve’s. “My best guy here needs help washing his hair.”  
   
She laughs, like it’s the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard. Steve scowls, both at Bucky for making him the butt of the joke, and also at Mary for thinking it’s so preposterous to imagine them in the shower together. The joke would be on her, if he’d ever be brave enough to tell it. He won’t. It could get them kicked out of their apartment, or fired from their jobs, or killed.  
   
“I’ll see you soon, then.” An ominous promise; like she’ll show up in their lives whether Bucky wants her to or not. She waves again, and continues on her way.  
   
“You’re a jerk,” Steve tells him.  
   
“I turned her down nicely,” Bucky protests.  
   
“I wasn’t talking about her.”  
   
“I  _could_ help you wash your hair.” Bucky’s lips pull on the cigarette again, and grins over at Steve.  
   
Steve rolls his eyes and ignores the jab. He drapes his own arms over the guard rail and leans on them. The sun dips below the tops of buildings in the distance, turning the sky around it pink and orange. When he chances a glance at Bucky, the low light has turned his skin to a golden glow. Steve wants to kiss him. He also doesn’t want to be the reason Bucky doesn’t get everything he deserves out of this life.  
   
“You should go out with her.”  
   
Bucky frowns at him. “Why?”  
   
Steve shrugs and looks at his hands. They’re rough, and calloused, and there is dirt under his fingernails. Mary’s hands would be soft and clean and perfect. They’d look so much better in Bucky’s than Steve’s do.  
   
“Hey.” Bucky’s shoulder bumps Steve’s again. “What are you talkin’ about?”  
   
“She’s pretty.”  
   
“And?”  
   
It’s a while before Steve can muster the courage to voice the unhappy thoughts that are swirling around in his head. Bucky waits; patient as always. He does move in just a little closer, now that the street below them is deserted. His whole arm touches Steve’s. If they weren’t still outside, he might lift it and put it over Steve’s shoulders. They’re so narrow, compared to Bucky’s. It hurts, sometimes, to look into the cracked mirror above their bathroom sink and take in his appearance. His boney arms and his pale skin and the way his ribs stick out. Bucky is so beautiful. Tall and tanned and strong.  
   
“You ever think you’re wasting time with me? Wasting your life?”  
   
Bucky considers it for a moment, and answers slow, and measured. “What life am I wasting? My life is  _with_ you.”  
   
“You could get any girl you wanted.”  
   
“I don’t want them,” Bucky says simply, with a shrug of his own. A final drag on the cigarette and it’s burned down to the end. He rubs the spark out on the metal grate next to his thigh, and tosses it away in front of him.  
   
Steve watches it float down, four storeys, to the street below.  
   
Bucky leans over, kissing Steve’s shoulder quickly before straightening back up. “What’s goin’ on, Steve?”  
   
“We might always have to hide. Forever.”  
   
“So what?”  
   
“We couldn’t have kids.”  
   
“Who says I want kids?”  
   
“Don’t you?” Steve finally looks at him, and sees worry and confusion in Bucky’s clear blue eyes.  
   
“I don’t know. Does anyone really know? I think it’s just something you do, if you’re married to a girl. And if you’re not, you don’t.”  
   
“ _That_ life. That’s what you’re wasting, with me.” Steve blinks at him. “Sitting in the auditorium at the school, holding your wife’s hand, watching your kids in the Christmas play.”  
   
“But I get you.”  
   
“But you shouldn’t  _want_ me,” Steve insists, getting upset.  
   
“Do you not want  _me_ anymore? Is that what this is?” A deep frown wrinkles Bucky’s forehead.  
   
“No, that’s not …” Steve looks away, and bends forward to bang his forehead against the railing in front of him.  
   
Bucky is quiet again, and then he pats Steve’s shoulder, and uses the railing to pull himself to his feet. “Come inside,” he says, and doesn’t wait for Steve before he leaves the fire escape and goes back into their apartment through the window.  
   
Steve sighs, and takes another moment to stare at the swirling cotton candy sky. He gets up, then, and follows Bucky into their living room. Bucky is on the couch, looking up when Steve enters, and holding out his hand. As much as he wants to, Steve doesn’t take it, and doesn’t join Bucky on their tattered tartan couch. He sits instead in the green chair opposite him; shabby and worn, like everything they own is. Bucky’s hand falls to his own thigh with a soft thump. The frown is still twisting his forehead.  
   
“She’s better to look at than I am,” Steve admits. It burns in his chest to say it.  
   
“Every girl is better to look at than you,” Bucky jokes.  
   
He does mean it as a joke. Steve knows he does. It hurts anyway. “Not you, though. That’s why they all like you. Because you are nice to look at.”  
   
“Stevie,” Bucky sighs. “I was kidding.”  
   
“Doesn’t mean you’re wrong. Did you notice Mary didn’t even look at me? Not even once. We went to school together, I sat behind her in English for our whole senior year, and I bet she doesn’t even remember my name.”  
   
“I’m not gonna take her dancing. I’ll give her a stronger no once I’m not yelling it at her from the fire escape.”  
   
Steve shakes his head. “That’s not the point.”  
   
“Then what is the point? ‘Cause you’re talkin’ in circles and I’m trying to catch up to you but I can’t.”  
   
Slouching miserably down in the chair, Steve leans his head against the back of it. He knows how stupid he’s being. He wants to be confident, like Bucky is. More than that, he wants his outward appearance to accurately mirror the person he is inside. Everyone overlooks him, or looks past him, or only regards him long enough to decide he’s useless because he’s small. Steve wants to help people, and be able to fight off bullies without having Bucky show up and rescue him. He’s still always going to try, and take as many punches as he can, but being able to punch back just as hard would change everything.  
   
“You think I’m gonna up and leave you one day for a pretty girl? Because you’re ugly?” Bucky surmises.  
   
He doesn’t have the nail quite on the head, but close enough, and Steve shrugs again. Bucky gets up. He walks over, around the coffee table, and grabs Steve’s hands to pull him roughly to his feet. He puts Steve in the middle of the room, makes him stand up straight, and puts his hand flat on Steve’s head and then drags it over to his own arm, marking where Steve comes up to.  
   
“What are you doing?” Steve asks.  
   
Bucky looks down the length of himself. “What would you say, you’re about four-fifths my height? What is that, about 80 percent? So 80 percent as tall as me, so that means you’re worth 20 percent less than me, right?”  
   
Steve blinks at him. “What?”  
   
“Give me your arm,” Bucky says, and then doesn’t wait for Steve to comply. He takes Steve’s arm by the elbow and holds it up, poking at his bicep. “Hm, not as big as mine, I guess I’m better than you in every way, huh? That’s a shame, maybe I will go find a nice, pretty girl and ask her to marry me. Wouldn’t want to spend my time with someone who’s so inferior.”  
   
He does, belatedly, understand the point Bucky is making. Steve rolls his eyes again. “Buck.”  
   
“No, that’s what you meant, right? You’re shorter than me, and you can’t put on muscle as easily, and you got bad lungs, so you must not be worth a thing? Isn’t that what you think?”  
   
“Maybe I think it because everyone else thinks it!” Steve cries.  
   
Bucky glares at him. “Maybe everyone else is fucking wrong. And maybe it should matter more to you what I think, than people you don’t give a fuck about anyway.”  
   
“I … it does. Bucky, it does,” Steve promises, his defensive instincts dissolving away as Bucky’s hands rub his shoulders.  
   
“And what about everything else?” Bucky moves in a little closer, and kisses Steve’s forehead. “What about the shit they can’t see? What about the fact that you take care of both of us, that you know I’d be out on my ass if you weren’t here reminding me I’m late for work and paying the gas bill and bringing home groceries ‘cause I never remember? What about how brave you are, how  _good_ you are. What about the kid who ended up in the hospital with a concussion because he picked a fight with the meanest bully in school for pushing little girls down on the playground?”  
   
“That was stupid,” Steve mumbles. They’d lived on barely enough food to survive for a month after that, so his mother could pay the hospital bills.  
   
“Yeah, it was,” Bucky agrees, but his voice is fond. “Sometimes you’re pretty stupid. But always for a good reason. Always because someone smaller than you or weaker than you needs standing up for.”  
   
Steve leans forward into him. He doesn’t mean to, his body just gravitates to Bucky like they’re both made of magnets. It always has. He’s expecting Bucky’s arms to wrap around him, but instead Bucky hunches over, grabs around the backs of Steve’s thighs, and in one swift motion, picks him up and pins him against the wall.  
   
“Bucky!” Steve yells. “What the fuck, put me down.”  
   
Bucky ignores him. He keeps Steve up with one arm under his ass, and wrestles his other arm out so he can take Steve’s left hand and hold up his fingers. “What about the things these can do? What about the magic you can put on a piece of paper with just a pencil and your imagination?”  
   
“Art is for poofs anyway. Put me down.”  
   
“Says who? Point ‘em out to me and I’ll fight ‘em.”  
   
“You think that’s helpful?” Steve snaps, but he’s only half-mad. Maybe not even half. “I’m here feeling shit about my size, and you’re picking me up like a little kid and threatening to beat guys up for me because I can’t do it myself?”  
   
Bucky lets go of Steve’s hand. His brow is still furrowed, but there is kindness in his eyes. Love, too, when Steve looks closer. He’s never doubted that. His gripe is with the fact that maybe Bucky  _shouldn’t_ love him, not worry that Bucky doesn’t.  
   
“Help me out a little?” Bucky asks, his arm starting to shake under Steve. “Wrap your legs around my waist or something, you’re heavier than you look.”  
   
“Gee, thanks,” Steve grumbles, but he does as he’s asked. Looping his legs around Bucky’s hips lets Bucky keep him up with just the weight of his body sandwiching Steve into the wall, and he can bring both hands up to press against Steve’s chest.  
   
“What about what’s in here?”  
   
“Lungs that don’t work right?” Steve suggests sarcastically.  
   
Bucky shakes his head. He tilts his chin up, asking for a kiss, and Steve gives it to him, draping his arms over Bucky’s shoulders so his fingers can play in soft brown hair as their lips slide together.  
   
“This big, beautiful heart,” Bucky murmurs to him. “Yeah, fine, it doesn’t beat quite the way it’s supposed to. But it’s been strong enough to keep you alive, all those times the angels tried to take you away from me.”  
   
“What angels?”  
   
“That’s what my Ma said, when we were kids. The first time I saw you really sick, the first time we thought you might not make it. That the angels in heaven were just taking you back. That they realized they needed you more than we did.”  
   
Steve gently squeezes a handful of Bucky’s hair, and kisses his cheek. “We were really young, for you to have to face possibly losing your best friend.”  
   
“People die all the time around here, before their time,” Bucky says. He doesn’t mention Steve’s parents, but it sits unspoken between them anyway. “But I don’t think I ever would’a gotten over losing you.”  
   
Steve inhales, and blows it out heavy through his nose. “Can you please put me down?”  
   
Bucky listens, this time, leaning back just an inch so Steve slips down the wall and back to his feet. He’s only gone for a moment, though, and then he’s pulling Steve back into his arms for another kiss, deeper this time.  
   
“I get your point,” Steve tells him. “I’m worth more than the things that are wrong with me.”  
   
“If that’s what you think I was saying, you didn’t get my point at all.” Bucky’s fingers brush Steve’s hair off his forehead. “I don’t love you in spite of what you look like. It’s not something I’m willing to overlook because I like other things about you. You’re beautiful, Rogers, exactly the way you are. I don’t care if other people don’t agree. I don’t care if  _you_ don’t agree. You’re still beautiful. With boney elbows and bad lungs, and hands that feel like heaven when they’re on me, and the nicest smile this side of the Hudson. Beautiful, every bit of you.”  
   
“Cut it out,” Steve complains, feeling the flush all the way down his chest, but something else warms him, too. Like a warm blanket on a cold day, Bucky’s words and arms wrapped around him, keeping out the chill.  
   
“Make me,” Bucky challenges, the glint of a dare in his eyes.  
   
Steve pushes him back onto the couch – Bucky could hold his ground if he tried, but he doesn’t – and climbs into his lap. Bucky’s hands go to Steve’s hips, and Steve kisses him until they have to break apart to gasp for air.  
   
“Thank you,” he whispers, into the miniscule space between their faces; safe, in their home and in Bucky’s arms, to be sincere about it.  
   
“Any time, pal. You know you got me.”  
   
“Yeah.” Steve nods. “I know I got you.”  
   
   
   
 


End file.
